The following description relates to remapping the input elements (e.g., keys or buttons) of a hand-held device to desired actions or functions.
Conventional hand-held electronic devices, such as cell phones, personal digital assistants (“PDAs”), pocket personal computers, smart phones, hand-held game devices, bar-code readers, remote controls, and other similar hand-held input devices having a keypad or one or more input elements, have become increasingly sophisticated and physically smaller due in part to a decrease in the price of processing power and a concurrent increase in demand by consumers for smaller devices. The input elements on such hand-held electronic devices, such as keys, buttons, directional pads, touch pads or screens, force sensitive resistors and accelerometers, are typically hard coded for a particular action or function, such as power on or off, volume up or down, text input, cursor control, or directional movement. For example, with respect to text input functions, one of the input elements may be hard coded to insert the character 2, A, B, or C in a text application when that input element is pressed by a user, while another input element, once pressed by the user, may be hard-coded to insert the character 3, D, E or F in the text application. Currently available operating systems that run on such electronic devices, such as Symbian, J2ME and Windows Mobile, allow application developers to override the hard-coded actions or functions and assign (or re-map) different actions or functions to the input elements; but, generally, these re-mapped input elements apply only across a single application.
FIGS. 1a and 1b illustrate an abstraction of the hardware and software components involved in a conventional mapping process in the Windows Mobile operating system environment on a hand-held electronic device 100. FIG. 1a depicts a hand-held electronic device 100 that includes a plurality of physical input elements 104, a keyboard device driver 108, and application software 112. On some hand-held electronic devices, such as cellular phones, an input element 106 labeled as “2ABC” may be one of the input elements 104 used to form a keypad. Generally, the physical input elements 104 are mapped to user input requests through a combination of keyboard device driver 108 mapping and software application 112 mapping. The keyboard device driver 108 is typically implemented as a layered driver, including a lower layer, or platform dependent driver (PDD) 109, which retrieves scan codes from the hand-held electronic device 100, and an upper layer, or model device driver (MDD) 111, which maps the scan codes to virtual input element codes, generates character data associated with virtual-input element codes, and then packages keyboard messages and puts them in a system-wide message queue. The application software 112 retrieves the keyboard messages from the system-wide message queue and executes functions based on the keyboard messages. The keyboard device driver 108 and application software 112 are typically stored in memory (not shown), such as random access memory, on the electronic device 100.
FIG. 1b illustrates this conventional mapping process when a user presses a physical input element 104 on a hand-held electronic device running Windows Mobile and currently available application software, such as a text application or dialing application. In process step 120, a user presses a physical input element 104 on the hand-held electronic device 100, such as input element 106, which generates a scan code. Typically, a keyboard controller writes the scan code to a buffer on the hand-held electronic device 100. At process step 124, the keyboard device driver 108 translates or maps the scan code representing the press of the physical input element 106 to a virtual input element code. Specifically, the PDD 109 receives an interrupt to retrieve the scan code from the buffer and the MDD 111 converts the scan code to a virtual input element code. The keyboard device driver 108 calls a keyboard event “keybd_event” with the virtual input element code and the scan code. At process step 130, the application software gets notified that a user has pressed a particular physical input element. Specifically, the application software 112 receives the keyboard event with the virtual input element code and the scan code. The application software 112 then typically executes a function associated with the virtual input element code and the scan code. For example, on the hand-held electronic device 100, such as a cellular phone, pressing the “2ABC” physical input element 106 on the phone generates a scan code that is retrieved by the PDD 109. The MDD 11 then converts or maps the scan code to a virtual input element code representing character data 2, A, B or C (in a text application, for example) depending of the number of presses on the “2ABC” physical input element. The keyboard device driver 108 calls “keybd_event” with the virtual input element code and scan code. The application software, such as a text application, executes a function based on the received virtual input element code and the scan code, such as displaying the number “2” or letters “A”, “B”, or “C” on the electronic device's display or LCD.
The physical input elements on hand-held electronic devices are also typically positioned at predetermined, fixed locations on one or more surfaces of the device. As a result, such electronic devices tend to be limited in function and utility by the user's ability to comfortably interface with the device for data input (e.g., text, numeric, and functional input) and/or device control (e.g., game control during game play), which becomes increasingly more difficult and more uncomfortable to do as the available space on the device's surface for positioning the input elements, which are used for data input and/or device control, continues to decrease.
For data input, in most conventional hand-held electronic devices, a user typically inputs data through miniature keyboards and keypads used alone or in combination with chordal input techniques, modal input techniques and/or smart keys, or through touch screens used in combination with on-screen keyboard or keypad software or hand-writing recognition software. The number of input elements making up a miniature keyboard or keypad varies, but typically a keypad used on most conventional hand-held electronic devices includes twelve or more input elements, although some specialized hand-held electronic devices have fewer input elements, such as Firefly. Most often these input elements are placed on the bottom half or bottom third of the front face of the device. With such electronic devices, a user may input data using his thumbs while grasping the device with both hands, or may input data using his thumb while grasping the device with the same hand, or may input data using his fingers while holding the device in his other hand.
Any of these methods of inputting data (particularly thumb input) in conventional hand-held electronic devices can result in repetitive strain injuries (RSI) especially for those users who tend to spend a lot of time inputting data in smaller hand-held electronic devices, such as cell phones and PDA's. Moreover, particularly for thumb input, due to the physically small size of most hand-held electronic devices and the location of the input elements on the front face of such electronic devices, often times the user's thumb is required to hold the device while, with the same thumb, trying to reach the input elements located at the bottom of the front face of such devices, e.g., the input element representing the space key or input elements representing the letters P through Y on a keypad or the bottom row of input elements formed to represent a QWERTY keyboard. This requires the user's thumb to apply substantial force in an awkward position.
For game control, in most hand-held electronic devices, a user typically controls game play through the use of some form of input element, such as on a miniature keypad and/or directional pad (“D-pad”), which typically is located on the front surface of the device. Game control on some hand-held electronic devices, such as cell phones, is typically one handed or at most two thumbed because of the size of the device, while game control on other hand-held electronic devices, such as PDAs and conventional game console controllers, is typically two-handed. The input elements associated with game control on these devices, such as cellular phones and PDAs, are typically digital even though analog input elements have been used on game controllers for PC and console game systems, such as Microsoft's Xbox or Sony's Play Station 2. Given that most cellular phones and PDAs do not use analog input elements, during game play on such devices, the user typically must repeatedly press certain input elements, such as arrow keys, to move a user's character or other object of control, such as a cursor, to the left or right, and to be good at the game the pressing typically needs to be rapid. Thus, in such devices with digital input elements, emulating continuous control of characters, vehicles, or other objects of control can be tedious and difficult. Moreover, similar to inputting data on these hand-held electronic devices, game control may result in repetitive stress injuries especially for those users who are avid game players.